In the area of vehicle telematics, a vehicle telematics control unit (“TCU”) in a vehicle typically includes a housing that encloses a location determining device module, for example global positioning satellite system (“GPS”) circuitry, one, or more, wireless transceiver(s), such as a long range wireless telephony circuit (e.g., a cellular network transceiver circuit), a short range wireless transceiver circuit, and a medium range wireless transceiver circuit, and an interface to other vehicle electronics systems, typically using the vehicle networking bus, for example the CAN bus. The GPS and wireless circuits typically couple to a processor and memory that operates the communications circuitry and the data and information that they transmit and receive.
The wireless circuitry can transmit coordinate data that the GPS circuitry produces to a remote-from-the-vehicle, off-board, centrally located computer system serving one or more vehicles. The central computer system can make the vehicle's current location available on a display in relation to features of a map, such as roads, landmarks, and other points of interest. The central computer may be coupled to a communication network that includes, for example, a cellular telephony/data network, the internet, a private, ‘walled garden’ network, or other similar network, that allows devices remote from the central computer to send and receive information to and from the central computer.
A user may view a location of his car via a wireless mobile communication device (i.e. smartphone, or mobile internet device (“MID”)) displayed as an icon against a map background. If the user forgets what part of a large parking lot he parked in, or which street near a concert or sporting venue he parked near, he can request that the central computer obtain the vehicle's location from its TCU and transmit it to his wireless device so he can determine where to walk to find his car.